Slope of Hope Blog Posts

This is the heart and soul of the web site. Here we have literally tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. You can also click on any category icon to see posts tagged with that particular category.

Welcome to a new week, everyone. First off, unrelated to anything, I’ve just got to see that this story about how California’s high-speed rail is going way over budget (tens of billions) and is going to be many years late is the least-surprising thing I’ve ever witnessed. California came up with this thing in the throes of the financial crisis, I guess as a changey-hopey way to convince citizens they were forward-thinking, but I immediately concluded it would be an utter debacle.

For those unfamiliar with it, the idea is basically to retrofit existing tracks, as well as build new ones, to create a sorta-kinda “high” speed train between San Francisco and, frankly, Disneyland (portrayed as “Anaheim”). This is not going to be anything like those amazing multi-hundred MPH beauties from Japan or China. No, in the end, it’s going to be an incredibly expensive, incredibly late, slightly-modernized train which they’ll probably wind up driving at 80 mph or so. My dire prediction seems to be right on target so far.

I bought puts where that red arrow is. I think we’re done now. On an unrelated note, I’ve been frantically lightening up my shorts – – ZH had an excellent article this morning calling for a low on the SP at 2540, and WOW, B of A (the analysts) nailed it!

As the outset, I’ll say I think oil is heading much lower, but for the moment, it seems energy stocks are………dare I use the word?………..oversold. I at least wanted to point out this mildly-interesting chart of the triple-bullish ETF symbol ERX, which is nestled on a supporting trendline.

As for my portfolio in general, the jury is still out about whether my lightening up this morning was wise or foolish. I remain short at about 100% of my portfolio’s value, but the difference is that I came into the day 200% short.

The following monthly chart shows that /CL has since rallied to retest its bearish moving average Death Cross apex at $65.00 and is hovering above that price, as well as its 50-month moving average.

If $72.00 is, indeed, in the cards, as I described in the aforementioned post (or even higher to retest $75.00 price resistance), it’s very important for /CL to hold above $65.00, now major support. A drop and hold below could send it tumbling back to $55.00, or lower.